Netanyahu Claims “We Are Always Working For Pollard’s Release”

Israel is working all the time to convince President Barack Obama to free imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said on Sunday.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, the prime minister rejected drawing comparisons between recent reports indicating that U.S. intelligence has been intercepting correspondences between high-ranking Israel officials and pardoning Pollard.

“We don’t need any special event to spur us to action to free Pollard. We are busy with this all the time,” said Netanyahu. “There is no connection between reports stating that the U.S. collected data in Israel and the potential release of Pollard.”

The prime minister’s comments came as former U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Dr. Lawrence Korb argued the opposite, calling Pollard’s ongoing imprisonment absurd, especially in light of the revelations about U.S. spying.

“The lack of proportion of Pollard’s sentence and his worsening medical condition in any case demands his release by any measure of justice,” Korb said.

Korb argued that revelations indicating that the U.S. has been spying on Israeli leaders while adamantly refusing to pardon Pollard after he has languished in prison for 29 years, “bring the case to dimensions of true absurdity.”